From CEO to Conservation Legend: An Interview with Kristine Tompkins

: Well, Pumalín, where I am today, is the first project we started on. And all hell broke loose during the first few years because this was a very unusual event. We were called the people who cut Chile in half, and accused of trying to start a new Jewish state, even though we were raised Anglican. All kinds of crazy things – they said we would take away all the cows and reintroduce North American bison. At the time, I didn’t really understand the human cry. But then I started reading about the history of the creation of the U.S. National Parks, and we realized that this happens everywhere. It doesn’t matter whether you’re in Tanzania or the U.S., there’s this inherent conflict between conservation and development. And this was the first of its kind here in Chile, so I’ve really come to see that the experience we had in the first few years here at Pumalín was in fact quite ...